It’s that time of the year again — Academy Awards. For a while, I was concerned that I would even be able to find five movies to nominate, but, due to some wonderful surprises at year’s end, we have our list.

I do not consider these the “best” five films of the year because I don’t think you can quantify “best” when it comes to film. There are films we either like or don’t like. I know that some of you may be surprised and/or disappointed that some films are missing from this list (like Seabiscuit, In America, and Big Fish). I just need to reiterate that the films on the list below are the films that I liked the best in 2003 and are, I believe, films that fit the criteria of asking who we are and why we’re here — and also have us leaving the theater feeling at least a little bit better about being a human being.

So, here they are. The descriptions below are greatly condensed versions of our Movie Alerts and Columns. You can review the complete discussions of these films by going to www.movingmessagesmedia.com/current.html and, if you’re not yet on our email list for these Alerts, please join us! — www.movingmessagesmedia.com/emaillist.html.

Whale Rider

This was simply my favorite film of 2003.

When an old paradigm dies, a void in time is created and that twilight space becomes a magical opportunity for all those who have been born into it. The new paradigm is still but a ray of sun on a distant horizon, and it is that light that sustains us in the unknown of that suspended moment in time. Just as the power of paradox lies in the space between solution and resolution, powerful transcendence awaits all those who feel their hearts pulled to the call of that “swing between worlds.”

Pai, the thirteen-year old heroine of Whale Rider, guides us through her own experience of that moment of transformation. She hears the call of ancient whales that draws her and us into a film that is haunting, prophetic, and groundbreaking.

As Spiritual Cinema, and as powerfully as any film in recent memory in this genre, Whale Rider is a metaphor for the majesty of this epoch into which we have all chosen to be born. As the early days of this new millennium unfold, old traditions are changing and outdated belief systems are being challenged and dismantled. Entrenched ways of thinking and responding to each other and the world around us are being confronted by courageous souls such as Pai and, as a result, our world is evolving and reaching up its arms to the approaching dawn of that new paradigm whose light bathes our faces in the reflection of the wisdom of such films as Whale Rider.

Love, Actually

“The” Holidays. Family. Close friends. The end of one year and the beginning of a new one. A time when one’s heart may be at its most vulnerable — either fully open to the warmth of all the love that the season can imply, or, perhaps, fully susceptible to the loneliness that can seem almost unbearable in the longing for family, a significant other, health, or peace of mind.

Now, with little fanfare, a new film has arisen which may, in years to come, take its place as a classic Holiday film. Love, Actually begins with a sequence at Heathrow Airport in London where the joyful greetings of families and loved ones is observed with a wonderful voice-over that puts the film itself in early perspective. Even with all the anger and hate that is blared at us in our every day world, writer/director Richard Curtis poignantly observes that, “even after the planes hit the twin towers,” the messages from people who were on those planes were not those of hate or revenge but rather that “love is, actually, all round us.”

There have been so few films this year that you walk out of feeling happy and proud to simply be a human being that Love, Actually came along in this particular season as a welcome and refreshing reminder of the beauty of our humanity ... that, above all the strife and challenges that confront us, we have this unique and endless capacity to consciously immerse ourselves in the experience of love — for one another, and for ourselves.

Matrix: Revolutions

“Everything that has a beginning must have an end.”

Or does it?

The groundbreaking Matrix series (but not its impact) comes to a conclusion with Matrix: Revolutions and I believe that it will be remembered for decades to come as a seminal step forward in the potential of Spiritual Cinema to remind us of the complex beauty and paradox of our humanity. So, please, see it yourself. Regardless of what you may hear or have heard to the contrary — regardless of what you may have felt about Matrix: Reloaded. There is magic and mystery in this film that rivals and, in some ways such as its brilliant and paradoxical ending, surpasses the original Matrix.

The visuals in Matrix are dazzling and majestic, but it is has always been the philosophical and metaphysical musings of the Matrix trilogy that have made the series so extraordinary. Matrix: Revolutions illuminates both the challenges and breathtaking opportunities of humanity on the brink of knowing the unknowable. On the brink of, but not yet ever quite complete. As is said in the film — “I didn’t know ... but I did believe.” The human experiment, the “illusion” of life, the ephemeral nature of our notions of reality. Emotions and glimpses of the potential answers to our existence, tantalizing yet never so obvious as to rob us of our individual right to create and interpret our own reality.

American Splendor

What a wonderful and enchanting surprise this film is!

American Splendor traces the true-life story of Harvey Pekar, who became an underground comic book hero in the 1980s. The comic books are very appropriately called American Splendor and they detail Harvey’s everyday life — working as a file clerk in a Cleveland Hospital and generally feeling like the world was created to personally torment him. You think Larry David is a curmudgeon in Curb Your Enthusiasm? Wait till you see Harvey!

The title of the film and comic books themselves is a wonderful commentary on the journey into the everyday Cleveland life of its protagonists. These characters are people we meet all the time in our lives and, for me, are truly representative of the heart of America. Hardworking people who long for their place in the sun and for someone whom they can love and who will love them — survivors of countless encounters with the ordinary ups and downs of every day life, optimists who strive every day to keep that optimism alive in the face of disappointment, even heartbreak. I heartily and wholeheartedly recommend American Splendor as a fascinating and original film in a time where this kind of innovation is rare and, when it does appear, is usually translated from a dark perspective. I really believe that many of you will love the film, and I can’t wait to see it again.

Under the Tuscan Sun

Spiritual Cinema asks who we are and why we are here, and illuminates our human condition in images, thoughts, and feelings that inspire us to strive for who we can be as a species when we operate at our very best. When movies touch upon all those issues, they resonate deeply within us. Such was my response to Under the Tuscan Sun which revolves around a subject matter rarely even approached today in mainstream films: women over forty who divorce, are divorced (or widowed), or who simply have chosen to be alone until that time of their lives.

Feel familiar? It just might. Divorce has become an unfortunate fact of life in America over the last thirty years and countless numbers of women have been faced with the dilemma of having defined their lives for themselves in one way (often through their spouses) and then being forced to confront a whole new set of challenges as their marriages dissolve. The movies have touched upon the subject matter, certainly, and there was even that apocryphal! story referred to in Sleepless in Seattle comparing the chances of a woman over forty getting remarried to the chances of being attacked by a terrorist. Also sounds a bit like the lyrics to a country and western song, doesn’t it? Except Diane doesn’t lose her truck. Don’t worry. As it is with the most painful and wrenching passages of our lives, Under the Tuscan Sun ultimately becomes a poignant, inspiring, and empowering reminder of the resiliency and determination of the human soul.